ReFrederator Blog

Today’s entry in our Occupational Hazard Week theme is a 1930 Ub Iwerks epic, “The Village Barber,” starring that piano plunking amphibian, Flip the Frog. Which, come to think of it, raises an interesting question; why would said village, a burg populated by many hirsute, anthropomorphized mammals, trust as their barber, the only completely hairless critter in town? Kinda makes you stop and go “huh?”

And speaking of things anthropomorphized, this is one of those crazy early thirties cartoons where inanimate objects suddenly have faces and intricately choreographed musical numbers. A pot bellied stove and some hair cutting clippers exhibit more charm and personality than most traditional bipedal cartoon characters. As to Flip, he certainly has personality, but I’m not so sure about the charm thing. In this, and other films of the period, he’s pretty cavalier about using other living animal’s body parts for his own professional needs — note that there isn’t a credit reassuring us “no cartoon animals were harmed in the making of this motion picture.”

We’re on the job tomorrow with another dose of animated antics. ReFrederator. The world’s first daily classic cartoon podcast.

Dave Kirwan